Opopanox, Home of the Arrogant Worm

Little Light at Taking Steps has a post titled ‘Shoulder To Wheel’.

Link located here;

It’s excellent, as always, with an abundance of connections to other bloggers who, yes, have something to say. Many things, actually, you’re gonna need bookmarks for this one. I’m an addict for good link farms.

An excerpt;

Solidarity says “not my problem” is nonsense. We’re all in this together. If you’re not brown, you’re not disabled, you’re not poor, your legal status is all in one place, if–actually, see, no. There shouldn’t have to be a list.
It should all get summed up when we tell each other, as allies, check your privilege.

She has another post titled ‘Slings And Arrows’ that I’d encourage everyone to read, it deals with language, a particular passion of mine.

Link located here

Language. Ooooooo, words, gotta love ‘em. But some (alright, a lot) of people are sloppy with language, and sometimes what people say isn’t what they actually mean. Or due to lazyness. And so the insults creep in, the ones I don’t mean to make. I try to be precise, but sometimes I get lax, and use the first word that comes to mind.

Ahem. Not good behavior.

Especially when I didn’t consider the word’s original meaning. I need to work on that. I’m usually decent, I think, but occasionally I look back (okay, I look back a lot) and find words I could’ve replaced in life with something much more accurate and not offensive to whomever I managed to accidentally insult.

I absolutely can’t stand insulting people when I don’t mean it, and I don’t like using words that have double meanings, one an adjetive and the other an insult. It’s been a personal goal for a long time to avoid using words like that in a negative context, since a lot of those words describe myself and people I care about.

But I fnd myself doing it anyway. The behavior creeps in, stealthily, and often leaves me unawares until later reflection. Not limited to other people, either. I occasionally find myself using the same words that would be used to insult moi. And ain’t that a kick in the teeth.

Off the top of my head, I can remember using lame on this blog. ‘Lamest excuse’, I b’lieve it was.

I’m sorry.

Today, I’m talking about porn. And…stuff.

Real handy as an excuse, porn is. Why, if it’s the porn’s fault that women are treated as lesser (to put it mildly), then nothing but the total eradication of porn needs to be done instead of changing individual behavior and systematic oppression! I think by blaming it on the porn it leaves people open to believe that everyone else is a decent hearted little soul who wouldn’t hurt a fly, only the nasty porn’s influence got in the way. To be overly broad.

I think if porn was at fault for the violence against women the world would’ve been butterflies and roses before television was invented. Because Lord knows it’s depicted that way, ain’t it. Since the time before clearly wasn’t a span of ‘Golden Years’ (despite claims to the contrary), I see the crappy side of porn being an offshoot of a larger problem.

Which isn’t a suprise, because there’s a crappy side to ’bout everything.

The crappy side housing drunk participants, illegal minors, racism, classism, ableism, all those nasty isms that are so bloody popular.

On a slightly different side of the fence there’s Porn vs. Erotica.

(I’m not linking them, you want ‘em, Google. Even went so far as to put a zero there so they don’t spam this blog to death. Trinity at The Strangest Alchemy already dealt with ‘em, I’ve no wish to engage. I just wanna rant a smidge. Is that so much to ask? Besides, they remind me of a virus.)

Anyway, I’m really, really disliking the “How the People Reclaimed Oklahoma City from a Major Eruption of Adult Businesses and Crime” article at N0PornNorthHampton dot com at the moment, among other lovely little pieces.

Funnily enough, I do have ‘expressed frustration with inadequate or biased coverage of porn issues.’

I used to work on one of my high school’s newspapers, way back when. Mainly taking questionaires and compiling statistics and small opinion pieces, but occasionally I’d get stuck rewriting an article that someone handed in that Da Boss didn’t like. She did have impeccable taste, though, and I was the fastest at typing, so no grudges. Well, mostly. After two hours of constant typing, your fingers cramp somethin’ horrid. Bit of a slave driver, and no breaks, because she watched you. Try and take a two minute break and a head of grey would suddenly appear over your shoulder, asking how it’s coming and when you’d be done, because oh, here’s that piece on the game, and it needs to be typed up in the next fifteen minutes.

So anyway, when that little line that jumped out at me from the article, I almost pissed myself laughing. Because ‘factual’ newspaper articles are almost always partisan, they all have a slant. Hell, even if the article only listed statistics with a miniscule overview of what those statistics represent it would have a slant, due to how those statistics were most probably compiled.

Go self-censorship, inadequate questionaires and deliberate blindess!

We love you!!

Not.

But the articles listed on that webpage were written at such an angle I’d be suprised if whomever typed it up wasn’t sniggering quietly in the corner. Because they had to know what they were creating angles, there’s no way to miss it. Therefore, to claim to be irritated with the abundance of angles when producing a huge one themselves is hypocritical. Come on, people, at least admit it. I won’t point and argue nearly as much as long as it’s admitted, honest.

I’m also curious as to where they’d draw the line between porn and erotica. According to Tommy Devine, Playboy is erotica. But I’ve read and heard several dissenting opinions that run the gamut from feminists to extremely conservative people on the Right (politically and morally, as much as that means anything) that I see such disagreements ending in flame wars and vicious, no holds barred personal attacks. I don’t think it’s anywhere near a clear cut line, it seems to be more in various hues of grey. What’s dehumanizing to a couple may be perfectly acceptable behavior to another couple. There’d have to be some all-knowing and most probably self-appointed, heh, judge, with a scythe and a set of scales to decide what’s porn and what’s erotica.

Pornography is a term reserved for the type of sexual images that treat woman as though they were objects, as if women existed for no other purpose but to be used for pleasure, even if that pleasure involves degradation and even violence. And it isn’t just women, in looking into the mysteries surrounding former teen star Stephen Geoffreys, I’ve discovered that gay male porn is just as bad…

Degradation and violence, apparently, is the difference between porn and erotica. Oh, and objectification. We’ll get to the latter in a moment.

Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but degradation is in the eye of the beholder. And correct me if I’m wrong (again) but some people get off on participating in that very degradation.

So if it’s consensual, who, exactly, is being violated? Hrm?

Oh, that’s right. People who don’t want to view, read or participate in such ‘degradation.’

Well then, turn around and walk/wheel/shuffle/slink/hop/skip away. Not that hard, really. Don’t like it, don’t watch, participate or read.

As for objectification, it tends to be a nasty thing.

But there’s always a but. Especially here.

People don’t share a psychic consciousness insofar as they believe what every other person believes. Everyone objectifies to some extent. I’m not saying it’s good, but I’m not saying it’s always bad, either. I’mthinking sometimes it’s inevitable, and it just is.

Take ‘erotica’, for instance. You just popped a disk in the dvd player, a tape in the vcr, or plugged into the good ‘ole World Wide Web. Or even, gasp, opened a book. (reflecting on America’s lack of love for the printed word, makes me teary eyed.)

Then the scenes (or words) start to roll. How, exactly, do you only focus on someone’s humanity, on their worth as a human being, when the only time you see them is when you’re horny? You can believe they have human worth and still be objectifying. It isn’t black and white, again, it’s various shades of grey.

They certainly don’t show their life goals, their likes and dislikes or the pain/joys that comes in life in erotica/porn. Not the visuals I’ve seen, anyway, and certainly not in-depth when I do see it written.

Probably because someone’s life story isn’t the goal of erotica/porn.

So Do Tell, I’m curious. What about erotica exemplifies someone’s humanity so much that it cancels out the sex? Because I think that’s what some people are going for, really.

“Sure, there’s ~sex~ but look!! They *love* each other, so it’s all right! It’s like the sex isn’t even taking place, they could just as well be having a double mocha latte with their partner!”

Is it having the people in the film or book doing something you’d do, or something you fantasize about?

By Jove, I think that’s the answer! I don’t know if it’s the complete answer, but I’m damn positive it’s a very large chunk. Call it a hunch.

You consider yourself human, or at least I hope you do. Porn/erotica is a type of projection where you can, conceivably, put yourself in another’s place. Who wants to put themselves in a place they don’t want to go? Nobody, unless they dislike themselves. Therefore, what some people don’t want to experience or see is inhumane, objectification. The bad kind, not the is-there kind people don’t want to admit to.

I dare you the next time you get hold of some erotica to focus on the person(s) humanity, their possible likes and dislikes, their goals and their history, and make it look nothing like your own instead of them being a fairly blank slate.

Use your imagination.

Go on, try it.

I’d like to know how far you (general you again) get before the people on the screen go back into being projected upon, to one extent or another.

‘Erotica’ bears a striking resemblance to ‘porn’, seems to me.

Almost missed this in the comments section there.

We distinguish porn, which is generally harmful, from erotica, which can be harmless or even beneficial. The distinction is not absolute, but we suggest that erotica is that which supports love, and porn is that which destroys love.

I didn’t and don’t think love is the goal every time someone gets off. Which is what I (apparently erroniously) assume porn/erotica is for. The site and it’s articles and submissions also seem to be centered on two-person couplings, which boots a lot of pairings to the side, another thing there I’m not fond about.

I used to have several erotica books. No, really! Picked them up from Barnes & Noble and everything. They even claimed to be erotica!

Decent writers, too. I think it was the 1995, 1998, and 2001 edition of something-or-other, I’ll have to hunt ‘em up again and find out. But anyway, I remember a lot of those stories. I saw ’support of love’ in a few of them, that is, where people had monogamous, long term relationships. What I mostly read was attraction, gentleness, roughness, different forms of objectification, a bit of SM, some consent where characters pretended not to consent, and quite a bit of leather and lace. One story even had a wine stain that played an important role. But little love.

I think the writers at N0PornNorthampton are projecting themselves, on erotica no less.

I wonder what they’re viewing/reading where it supports love.

Edited to add a mild dig at erotica being radically different than porn, and that eventually I’ll get to nattering on about role-playing, but not today.

~Just occured to me to make a clarification. I haven’t seen mainstream porn in a few years, and what I mostly remember from it was bad acting and quite a bit of sexism. Really, really bad acting. Was almost painful to watch, the laughter came so hard.

Like to explain that I’m not talking about most mainstream erotica/porn, because quite frankly I’m not that familiar with it. But hey, I could take a wild guess at what a chunk of it probably contains. (wild guess leaning heavily towards oodles of objectionable stereotypes)

I’m much more familiar with the literature side of porn/erotica, which I’ll admit to considering superior cuz it tells you exactly what the author means to say, instead of leaving it up to someone’s eyes to judge for themselves where the wrong message gets taken away. Much less confusion when it’s written well. S’a reason I think visual media is much more dangerous than other kinds.

Jerry Falwell ( August 11, 1933 – May 15, 2007) has passed on. Now, there’s a general consensus in my tiny little town to not speak ill of the dead, wether one has religion or no. I know this because every time I try to make a point and bring up a dead person’s past actions for various illustrational purposes, my mother swats me upside the head and tells me to shut up. As if calling someone an ass was the same as explaining what they’d done and why it was wrong. But I don’t believe death absolves people, and I find I do believe in reincarnation, of a sort. I also have the sneaking suspicion his karma’s going to bite him in the ass, if it hasn’t already.

To be short, I’ll type about him wether he’s dead or not, and since I don’t shut up for my mother, I’m not gonna be quiet for anyone else, least of all Falwell.

Falwell’s words speak for themselves, so well in fact that I don’t even have to point anything out, he did it himself. The only decent thing I’m aware of his having done is writing something very, very clear that I can point to to illustrate what opinions I think are reprehensible. Not that the world couldn’t have done without them, there’s more than enough examples of shitty beliefs floating around without adding his absolutely gigantic pile of manure to the heap.

Examples;

Labor unions should study and read the Bible instead of asking for more money. When people get right with God, they are better workers.
-As quoted in “The Right Wing Attack on the American Labor Movement” by Joanne Ricca at Wisconsin State AFL-CIO

I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen.’
- -Quoted in “God Gave US ‘What We Deserve,’ Falwell Says” by John F. Harris, in The Washington Post (September 14, 2001)

If Chief Justice [Earl] Warren and his associates had known God’s word and had desired to do the Lord’s will, I am quite confident that the 1954 decision would never have been made…. The facilities should be separate. When God has drawn a line of distinction, we should not attempt to cross that line.
- 1958 speech on the 1954 Supreme Court decision that effectively ended segregation

If he’s going to be the counterfeit of Christ, he has to be Jewish. The only thing we know is he must be male and Jewish.
- Describing his view in 1999 that the Antichrist “must be alive somewhere today.”

This is probably as bad a day as the court has had on social issues since Roe v. Wade.
-On the US Supreme Court’s ruling in Lawrence V. Texas regarding sodomy laws, as quoted in “Conservatives condemn ‘error of biblical proportions’” in The San Francisco Chronicle (June 27, 2003)

Unsourced examples;

If you’re not a born-again Christian, you’re a failure as a human being.

AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharaoh’s charioteers… AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals; it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.

It appears that America’s anti-Biblical feminist movement is at last dying, thank God, and is possibly being replaced by a Christ-centered men’s movement which may become the foundation for a desperately needed national spiritual awakening.

That was an extremely miniscule sample of what the man felt the need to pour from his mouth.

He will be missed, undoubtedly.

But not by me.

Why the hell didn’t anyone or anything inform me it was Mother’s Day? Sunday comes and Mom expects me to know? She didn’t even give me a hint beforehand! People are supposed to give hints beforehand! I don’t have a tv or a stereo, and I haven’t been to anyone’s house lately, how the fuck was I supposed to know? She knows I’m not good with holidays. I wish she would’ve given me a hint. And now she’s mad and won’t accept any consolation from me or anyone else.

I tried to explain that my calender doesn’t have days like that listed, it doesn’t even list when Christmas is. Told her if she waited a few days, I could come up with something. Suggested a movie-shelf, since she collects movies and I have one of those stored away she’s not aware of. Yes, I’m sneaky, but I’m also currently broke. She didn’t like the idea, told me to never-mind. I’ve found that she’s of the opinion that gifts don’t ‘count’ unless they’re bought and expensive, as I’ve heard her insulting what I got her for Christmas last year. So while I do feel bad, I don’t feel ~quite~ as bad as I probably should.

Also, she’s being a bit hypocritical in her meanness about it, just a couple of weeks ago she claimed to have forgotten my age so she told me she worked out the days with her smoking counselor. She triumphantly stated I was twenty-seven. I had to inform her that I’m not quite twenty-four. Apparently her math is worse than I thought. Largest mistake on my age she’s made yet. I pointed that out earlier, to try and get her to give me some leeway about missing Mother’s Day, but she still wasn’t having any of it. Probably not the brightest move, but she almost looked like she was gonna cave for a second there. So close and yet, so far.

She’s currently giving me the silent treatment and refused a hug. I volunteered to make her dinner, to hit her dvd player when it was on the fritz so she wouldn’t have to get up – Nada. Hopefully she’s in a better mood tomorrow and it isn’t another one of those make-everyone-else-miserable-for-days deals.

I can’t believe no one warned me.

Sassywho from I Never Leave The House Without Incident (Love the header) has a post up titled Philosophical Dissent In Sociological Ecosystems.

Link to Philosophical Dissent In Sociological Ecosystems here

She says she’s talking out of her ass, but if her ass has something to say (and it does) then I’m glad she let it speak. (sorry, odd mental picture, I’m over-tired.) It’s a basic post with some nice examples, she talks about where people are positioned in privilege and what’s the most beneficial way to use that privilege, and what isn’t using that privilege.

She mentions Jessica Valenti’s book Full Frontal Feminism. It’s one of those books that I’ve heard mentioned in several places, so it’s one of the ones I’ve also wanted to read to see what the fuss was about. What can I say, I’m a nosy bugger.

Anyway, she talks about the importance of listening to different women from all the sociological ecosystems, especially the ones that don’t often get heard because of (Yeah, you guessed it; and if you didn’t, you should’ve) less privileged states. Myself, I’d go so far as to say it’s one of the most important things a person can do to help further human rights, right up there with working with people (not on them) and donating what you have to give, wether it’s time, money, emotional support, what have you. The list of things needed is awful long, I’m sure everyone can find something.

An excerpt;

The conversation of privilege is a tricky one, especially if it makes you uncomfortable. I have never used the N-word, or any other racial slang, and for a long time I thought that made me less racist. It wasn’t until evaluating my privilege in several ecosystems that it became clear, while I may not be actively participating in hate-language I certainly played a part in systematic oppression.

I’m glad she brought it up. I b’lieve Belledame mentioned something along these lines several times, that is, playing parts in systematic oppression, but seeing it acknowledged on lots of different blogs makes me happy, lets me think we’re getting somewhere.

So, unless you live on a deserted island with absolutely no people, whatsoever, and have never and will never interact with anyone through any means, you play a part in the systematic oppression of someone. That includes the oppression that I myself contribute to, or own if you will, and all the little things ~they add up~ but really, it should go without saying that that’s obvious. But it’s important to remember that no one is exempt. At least, I don’t think anyone is exempt.

I think chugging along doing introspection at a steady pace is good a thing for everybody. You not only help others, you help yourself.

You might want to skip this, it’s pretty much one long whine.

I’m debating on constructing some sort of header that identifies me as permanently late. Everywhere I turn I find I’m putting things off, and that it’s always a few days later than when I promised myself it would be done. Pay the electric? Late. Send in my time card? Late. Two weeks late, as a matter of fact. Because I don’t want to deal with the post office. Still, no excuse, no excuse. Call the people that need to be called? Late. Adding the list of blogs I wrote down? Late.

At least I’m consistent in my lateness.

You know, if it wasn’t for bad luck I wouldn’t have any luck at all. Been trying to get into Mills Pride for work, and when the human resources person finally called back it was on the day she wants the interviewers in Elmira. My ride said no, we ain’t goin’, because we didn’t have any advanced warning and she doesn’t know the area in Elmira. Can’t usually get a break to save my life. I also got denied for the librarian job. And I need a physical, badly.

But they did send a very polite rejection letter, which was sweet of them.

Oh yeah, and my sleep has been shitty.

I want to say I have a lot to be thankful for. And I do, I’ve got both parents and a roof over my head. Food is sometimes scarce, but it is there. But there’s so many holes that people expect me to be thankful for, as well. Literally.

Place of current residence, for instance. My god, I hate this place. So very much. Yes, there’s a roof. However, there’s a gaping hole in the shower ceiling, and when it rains I have to balance in the narrow spot where the rain ~isn’t~ while simultaniously trying not to get the water on the bathroom floor, because there’s another hole where the linoleum curled up and the underneath rotted away and turned to dirt, because heaven forfend I make it worse. Occasionally rotting wood and ~stuff~ falls on me when I shower, and there’s a brief panic-y minute where I have to double check to make sure no spiders came with it. It happened once, a spider falling as well, so now I just worry.

And gymnastics was never my specialty, especially on a wet floor.

The only hot water that’s available comes from the shower and the bathroom sink, since I bought a sink last summer. Giant Boy Scout rummage sales are awesome. Bit of a pain to cart water for dishes. The toilet still works, for which I’m grateful, but the heating system doesn’t, for which I’m not. It blows soot. Dad tried to fix it, and ran it for a few weeks until the rest of the house convinced him it wasn’t worth it and made him turn it off. None to soon, the plastic bags I’d put over the heaters wasn’t holding back much.

You can’t clean soot off well, it’s incredibly hard because it smears itself around. We tried to wash the walls, it didn’t work out so well. So we didn’t have heat this winter again, except what money mom put into the portable kerosene. But that stays downstairs, and I live upstairs, and the door had to stay shut in the hall otherwise that little heater made no difference at all. I hate the smell of kerosene, it sticks to your clothes. So no, not grateful. I’m not even going to go into the aesthetics of what this place looks like, like the door that’s missing from my sister’s room, or that the floor is bowed and there’s some rather large holes in my ceiling where the laths show through. And the walls and floor are abnormally thin, it being an old house, so I hear conversations going on in the cellar, which is where Dad rooms. Suffice it to say the only people who’ve lived here in recent history are desperate. At least it isn’t raining on me anymore since I changed bedrooms. It’s certainly not the worst place I’ve lived, the neighborhood isn’t anything like the places I grew up.

It’s kind of ironic, this house is the black sheep of the block. Every other house on the block is nicely kept, middle class, definitely money. At least two cars in every driveway. If it were legal I’m pretty sure they’d run us out and torch the place. Not that I blame ‘em, exactly, I’d like to torch the place myself. But for different reasons than them worrying that the value of their property taking a nosedive.

I wouldn’t be mentioning this, except I’m tired of some people where I live telling me I should be grateful, on their terms, as if they’d be ecstatic to be housed in such a condition. I’m grateful to have a place to live right now, but I’m not grateful of the condition, and I refuse to let them insist I must be as happy as they are. Which is what I’m sure they really mean when they insist that I should be ‘grateful’. Fuckers.

A new Carnival is coming, and I’m hoping it’ll be a large one.

Via Sylvia;

Link to Sylvia at Antiessentialistspeaksup here

I think we should move on with this, and so I’ll repost BFP’s call for submissions here. Please advertise this on your blogs so we can get maximum participation for this first attempt.

Announcing:

The Carnival of Radical Action

Most of us are organizers or activists in our real lives. Or at the very least, we think about it an awful lot and wish we had the skills and/or knowledge to organize. But contrary to the images of protest that make front pages and cause our hearts to swell–actual organizing is not as easy as it looks–nor is it very glamorous.

More often than not, the process it takes to actually get to the glamorous protest part is boring, tedious, filled with infighting, or done by one or two overburdened people who haven’t quite figured out how to say no.

And yet, the organizing part is so vitally important to achieving liberation (whatever that may be). It was through tons and tons of grass roots organizing and hard work that the right managed to come to power in the U.S. the way it has. The Zapatistas and the U.S. based Civil Rights movement both also have a history of achieving goals towards liberation through grassroots organizing.

So how does one go about doing this grassroots organizing?

That’s what this carnival is all about. I will be accepting any posts/submissions that have anything to do with organizing on a grassroots level. Some topic ideas that you might feel inclined to think about:

How do you do radical leftist organizing in the Midwest [or wherever you are]? How do you confront racism/sexism/disableism/homophobia/classism etc within your group? How do you work with a community instead of on a community? How do you confront accessibility issues (that is, you’re all working class mothers and there’s rarely a time to meet or the site where you meet is not wheelchair accessible etc)? What’s been the major problem/setback your group has faced? How did it over come it? What has been a successful tactic in your organizing (for example, you found that taking pictures of violent cops and posting them online is more successful in stopping the abuse than reporting them to their superiors)? If you’re a life time activist, what are some problems you see today with organizing compared to when you first started? Or, if you’ve never organized before, write about why you never have.

This carnival will be about sharing strategies more than finding a “right” answer. In the world we face today where there are so many intersecting forms of oppression, one answer will not fit every community. But something that worked for one community might work for another if they alter it and adjust it to suit their own needs.

[…]

DEADLINE: MAY 25th
and the carnival will be posted on May 27th.

I’ll be waiting!

and many thanks to fire fly for motivating me to organize this!

You can post links to your submissions in the comments or e-mail them to me at sylviasrevenge at gmail dot com.

Let’s turn this idea into an excellent carnival in honor of BFP and our dedication to human rights.

It’s a wonderful idea, and I’m itching for the 27 now because I know nothing about grass-roots organizing. I tend to just give money because I don’t know what else to do. This Carnival would be a great boon for a lot of people who’ve little to no idea what to do to help achieve human rights, so I’ll reiterate, please pass along the message.

When oh when will it end.

First thing;

I’ve been reading and skimming various blogs and posts tonight, and BFP left the blogsphere because some people are being inconsiderate racist asswipes and not giving credit where credit is due. The email she recieved is below the pall, and while I’d love to get my twitchy little fingers around whomever typed it, it’s not likely to happen. I figure whomever’s trying to get her (and other poc bloggers, I notice it’s been happening a lot in the past months, more so than usual) to go away quietly and they deliberately wear down BFP’s and other’s emotional reserves and will probably, at some point, google her with keywords to see how people react and if it’s working. (Yes, I am indeed that paranoid) So eventually, with luck, they’ll stumble across this ~

Knock that shit off. You’re not fooling anyone. No. One. I doubt your even fooling yourself. I’d call you on racism and get brushed off or recieve some indignant squeal about you being totally enlightened. No one is ‘totally enlightened,’ most especially you, so don’t bother. I’d list your blogs as I find them so everyone ~else~ can see what kind of extremely objectionable people you are, but I don’t want to encourage traffic to your sites. Just…knock it off, you’re being an objectionable piece of shit. An insult to fertilizer everywhere. Dobson has more integrity than you, at least he owns the majority of his words.~

I’m listing BFP’s post, it needs to be read. She and others, especially woman of color, have posted time and again the grievances, and they’re getting mocked and ignored. I’ll be adding more links here as I compile the list.

Link to BrownFemiPower’s blog

Second thing;

It’s been a long fucking almost-twenty-four years in regards to everything.

Particularly housing. My whole family has been dealing with periodic homelessness for a long time, and lately, in between frantically searching for apartments and trying to save up enough money for the deposit and rent, it wears you down. There’s little time in my head to do anything else, because my mind sways back to my problems, and the problems of my family, whenever I’m writing or doing anything else. It’s not good for blogging. However, it’s worse if I don’t blog.

It’s like, I jump on something that I feel needs to be discussed, examined, what-have-you, and no sooner than do the first few sentences come flowing forth than my brain backs up, stalls, goes “Wait a minute!!! There’s a pressing concern that you’re not paying attention to!!!! LOOK AT ME!!!!” and what I’m attempted to ponder and pontificate on gets left by the wayside while I struggle not to focus on the matter that stomped on my brain. Again.

It’s virtually impossible to go in-depth about anything, or to discuss what you feel needs to be done when there’s a cloud over your head, especially when it’s one problem of many that never seems to get resolved. I don’t like leaving those damnable ‘I don’t have time for this, I’m too busy’ and ‘It’s so large’ additions to my posts, but right now I don’t feel I can help it, and it gets overwhelming.

We were supposed to move today, it didn’t work out for a multitude of reasons. So we’re still living in the same spot, which has its own problems, and we’re not getting evicted quite-yet, because the agreement didn’t go through on the buyer’s end. What a fuckin’ headache.

Octogalore at Astarte’s Circus invites you (and thereby me) to name three un-pc (Pc stands for ‘politically correct’ for those of you who live farther under a rock than I do) things that you do/think.

Link to Octogalore

And since I love a challenge, here we go.

I can practically hear my humanity getting flushed down the can.

1) I listen to Eminem. Little birdies have informed me it’s a bad habit, but the lyrics and the irony and the sarcasm that it screams! Can’t help it, guilty pleasure.

2) Occasionally when I have to dress as a woman (I’m in an in-between stage, due to having to live with my parents and lack of funds, plus, my mother’s screams hurt my ears) I go “all out” (read this as ’slut’) just so I can watch people stare and/or drool and mock them in my head and/or out loud, depending on how vocal they choose to be. I dislike the Clothes-Make-The-Person thinking so I mix the clothing with my actual behavior, contrasts in interesting ways.

Not the nicest behavior, I’ll admit, but it’s gratifying in a dark way. Hearing about how people dress and how it makes the person, can’t help but toy with it. I’m half tempted to post pictures for posterity of the difference in dress and how people read other people, because after I saw pictures (of myself) that an acquaintance of mine snatched on his phone, it’s startling. I forget what I look like. And the contrast between the modes of dress amaze me, I admit it.

Besides, there’s so many clothing choices that shoves you into the ’slut’ category when you have overly large tits by the way women’s clothing fits. It amazes me. Don’t even have to really work for it, just put on anything but a t-shirt, no binder, and prance out the door!

The most amusing moment, I gotta say, was when I caught a married, middle-aged woman with a kid staring at my chest for several minutes. I find this funny because most guys have a glance method, but I doubt most women have, ah, acquired the technique, and they flounder like mad when I catch ‘em.

Anyway, she happened to glance up, meet my eyes, turned an interesting mauve-ish color, apologized, and, get this, claimed she was staring because there’s a single, solitary mole to the left below where my collarbone is located. Apparently it drew her eyes and held her captive. That, hands down, was the lamest excuse I have ever heard from anyone staring at my chest. Gave her points for creativity, though.

The second most amusing, (It wars with the first, quite a battle) is when some idiot girl accused me of having implants in middle school. Who the fuck has the maturity to get implants in middle school, I ask you. Better yet, who can afford it, let alone want the resulting back pain from implants this size? I’ll be honest, it’s mainly the back pain that baffles me.

(I’m 5′2 on a good day, and 40D, although even that bra size is uncomfortable. The straps don’t seem to be made for broad shoulders. Someone needs to invent a bra that actually supports)

I don’t understand how people can get mad for catching someone staring at their chest when breasts look large, especially on a short frame. It’s not something I think most people see day in and day out, so people who don’t know you (I really mean me, here) are going to stare. Think Dolly Parton or Pamela Anderson in that department walking down the block. Apparently I’m not supposed to mention this in feminist space, or that’s what I’ve gathered, because if a guy stares I guess it’s supposed to be immediate grounds for objectification, no matter the reason. I also have the suspicion I’d get ignored if I attempted to explain that with me, it occurs nearly as often with women as with men. Like the time in Wal-Mart where a couple walked by me and then the woman of the pair started to complain/comment about how I looked, very loudly, several isles down. Why, exactly, are things like that not supposed to be mentioned?

And I was covered! Well, okay, mostly covered. I had a jacket on. Granted, I’d painted a sparkly-pink playboy bunny logo on it (Yes, I do egg people on sometimes, perhaps that should be number four. If I’m going to be ‘forced’ to wear clothing I don’t want that accentuates my breasts instead of hiding them, I’ll do it to my specifications, dammit.) I suppose the neon orange and pink bikini top I had under the coat didn’t help. Although it was a helluva lot more supportive than those damn bras, which is why I was wearing it in the first place. The top, not the coat. The coat was to irritate people with ‘delicate sensibilities’ and overly large mouths.

And sometimes, on those rare occasions, quite frankly, (Oh, the un-pc-ness!) pretty much any attention for whatever feature is nice, because it feels good to be considered attractive to someone, even though I think the feature in question is annoying, uncomfortable and doesn’t reflect myself. On another note (So many notes!) it’s odd how people switch pronouns depending on what body part they’re looking at. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s half body part, half clothing choice on how people pick pronouns. Because I’ve worn things that most men wouldn’t wear in the middle of hick county, (read this as women’s clothing) and still gotten ‘he’ as a pronoun from people I didn’t know. So I can only conclude they’re looking from my shoulders to the tip o’ my head when they use he with such clothing. That or they think I’m mtf and being rude. Hmm. I might ask that of the next person the next time I gotta capitulate on clothing.

I also took the liberty of reading the link to people discussing being propositioned. I don’t live in a city, so the rate of occurance might be a bit different, as I haven’t had any drive-bys that I categorize as solicitation.

Rude drive-bys with comments, yes. Solicitation that seemed honest, no, as the cars I’ve run across are full of people that seem to be trying to one-up each other. I believe there’s a large difference between male posturing and actual solicitation. That doesn’t mean they can’t be dangerous, just that they’re not there on business. Some of it, seems to me, is possibly used as an ego boost. And I do wonder what would happen if the men in question were called on it.

But then there’s those creepy fuckers who need a bullet to the head, but I ain’t talking about them. I’m also not talking about the people forced into such work through no consent of their own. But there is such a thing as informed consent, and people ignore it all to often.

So here’s numbah 3.

3) Now, I’ve been propositioned, but never for that ungodly sum of money (10 grand, I b’lieve), and only one involved sexual contact, the other two were strip work. I also think it’s a bit different accepting a proposition from someone you know instead of someone driving by on four wheels that you’ve never seen before. I’ll be discussing the former and not the latter, since I’ve never accepted the latter and I’ve no experience with it.

Also, I don’t think everyone who propositions someone else considers them an object, although I understand that the majority who inquire most likely do in some fashion, and do it in an incredibly creepy way as well. Stripping and sex can be and is a lot of things, but I’m also of the belief it can be work. Oldest profession and all that.

The questions that’ve been asked of me didn’t seem objectifying to me, in that it was phrased as a respectful request, they fully acknowleged it would be a service rendered and not some ‘you owe me or I own you’ shit. To be short, they knew me as a person first, and I’ve no idea how long it took for them to get the ‘balls’ to ask such question of someone that they saw every day, whether they knew me well or no. There’s a stigma I’ve found, on whatever parties are taking part, that no one must find out about such solicitations due to shame directed from others. And people can be real assholes about it, learnt that the hard way.

The ones I’m familiar with seemed to me to be a a service transaction type of thing. Although it’s only happened three times, and once was by my own offer.

No, I’m not a hooker. Let’s clear that up right now. Although I did consider dancing for a period of time, except I can’t dance worth shit and decided it wasn’t a career I’d be interested in long or short term. Too much maintainence in the looks department, I’m lazy. Edited to add; that and the whole saving for chest reconstruction thing. I doubt I’d ever get hired for dancing after that takes place, least as a woman.

Yeah, I’m aware most people probably think I lack morals after that admission. Oh fuckin’ well. I have my own set of ethics, they’re just probably not the same as yours.

Doubly edited, last time, cross m’heart.

I did have a ..well, I’m not sure what to call it, let’s call it a point, in mentioning how some woman stare just as much as some men. There’s the thing-you-don’t-see-every-day, but then, there’s something different, and I attempted to give an example of each. One would be the innocent staring where the woman turned that delightful shade of mauve, the other was the not-so-benign comments from the ass in Wal-Mart.

Definitions of objectification on the Web:

* The positioning of Others as objects for the benefit of the Self see Hegel s Master/Slave dialectic.
www.adamranson.freeserve.co.uk/critical%20concepts.htm

* the act of representing an abstraction as a physical thing
* a concrete representation of an abstract idea or principle
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

* Objectification refers to the way in which one person treats another person as an object and not as a human being. This is commonly used to refer to the way the mass media, in particular advertising, is perceived by some as portraying women as sex objects (although this treatment now increasingly also extends to men).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectification

The first, second and third definitions interest me most, and it was what I was trying to talk about, particularly when one woman considers another as a representation of a concept or belief, slut-shaming in particular. I see a lot of busy-bee taking apart of objectification of women by men, but very little of men by men or women by women, and none of the personal objectification of men by women. I’m not just talking about sexually, either, or only mass societal approval in the last instance since it doesn’t seem to exist on a massive scale -yet-. But objectification has the nasty habit of crossing every damn line and box I’ve found. Both men by men and woman by woman have been and are being used as representations of a thing and are being depicted in the mass media, and it’s most definitely encouraged, and while I haven’t found instances that I’m aware of in the media about men being objectified by woman, I’ve found it happens often in reading people’s personal reflections. I also see it beginning to sneak into ads for products. The point, or more question, really, is why isn’t it encouraged to talk about everything? Discussing A, but leaving out B, C and D doesn’t make any sense to me, unless someone is trying to take the moral high ground. (I don’t mean when someone is discussing a specific kind of objectification, but when people are discussing objectification in a broad way but dislike it when anything negative is mentioned about an experience that includes someone from the ‘class woman’. I don’t believe in a class woman where the whole of the class is treated the same. I think there’s too many variations to class by sex in most cases. This is more along the lines of, “But what about the people being objectified by everyone without their consent?”

Most especially of women by women, it’s vicious. I’m almost tempted to ascribe the few and far between discussions about a specific type of objectification of women by women as due to the type of privilege given to those who perform the role that society deems fit. It just seems that when it’s brought up, people call the offending person and their actions names, but it isn’t discussed to understand. Not often enough for my liking, any way.

This one in particular, “The act of representing an abstraction as a physical thing” covers a lot of ground, and I’m unsure whether many people can dissect themselves to such an extent, or would want to. For the record, Imma workin’ on it, but I dunno how far I’ve gotten.

But the title of the post is ‘Own Your Shit’ and it’s a good idea to start dismantling said shit as soon as possible, particularly when people ‘critique’ body types of both sexes and pretend that said types are there for a person’s own gratification.

Edit #3; Alright, so I inadvertently made a mistake, I didn’t discuss different gender or non-gender objectification. There’s just so much. It went through my head and passed out again while I was searching for a word. So. I’ve also seen an advertisement that had a transgressive gender theme, but I’m not sure if I’d consider that one objectification or not, I only saw it once, and it was in passing. I think it was either for cologne or wine. There’s certainly objectification of various kinds with individuals in, across and beyond the gender spectrum, though. All of ‘em, unfortunately.

I’ve barely skittered next to the making-movie porn industry in this post, and to elaborate requires more time than I currently have to explain my beliefs and opinions, so I’d like to apologize for that and also for all the stuff I’ve missed.

“The most important thing is to be whatever you are without shame.” – Rod Steiger

Blogging Against Disabilism Day is on May 1st. Sorry, ’tis late, but it still needs a mention.

Boxes and words, words and boxes. Ballastexistenz is hosting the Disability Blog Carnival #13, check it out. I strongly recommend reading her piece in the submission, it’s excellent. It’s about boxes, of a sort, and the expectations/requirements it takes to keep them, well, box-like. Bit hard to make a succinct synopsis, sorry, I tried.

Link Disability Carnival #13 at Ballastexistenz Here

In other news, I stopped smoking through no willpower of my own. It seems as if whatever virus I managed to catch prohibits me from inhaling cig smoke. When I try, it’s like the smoke gets stuck halfway and instead of getting a nicotine fix I wind up with a violent coughing jag. I haven’t had a puff in eight days, and it isn’t for lack of trying, either. It’s a gloriously good thing, since I’ve been wanting and alternately trying to quit for awhile now, but it’s much easier when your body simply won’t let you smoke. Should’ve been more careful not to acquire the habit, but it’s a bit late for that now. Hopefully my lungs quiet back down when given time, I’ve developed an unfortunate wheeze from smoking. Or it was maybe irritating old asthma habits. Haven’t smoked long (4+ yrs on and off, mainly on, unfortunately), so I thought a wheeze would be unlikely if it was just due to cigs.

I’d also like to take this time out to again (pretty sure it’s again, although it might not be) to apologize for the tone of my writing, which I haven’t figured out how to change yet, and if I was aware of how to I’m still not wholly certain I would, as it’s partial to me. I suppose my writing style might read as a bit affectatious to others, since my writing resembles my speaking and I’ve heard it of that. I suspect it also reads certain, although that isn’t (usually) my intent because I work things out constantly as it’s being typed.

I imagine my writing ‘tone’ could put a few bees in some bonnets and could be annoying, so I’m attempting to apologize.

In short, I don’t actually mean to read so arrogant, despite my penname here.

In the ever elusive search-of-self, I seem’to’ve hit a roadblock of sorts as it pertains to ‘why’. I’ve been nit picking at my understanding of beauty, arousal and sexuality and a messier thing I’d be hard pressed to find, though convoluted might be a better word choice. I’ll try and explain in clearer detail later. Then again, I might just be greedy. ‘Lil bit ‘o colum A…’lil bit ‘o colum B…

Also been reading up on Mao and communism, and while some of the ideas look just this side of decent, it’s got holes large enough to drive a truck through and I can’t say I like the history of the belief in action. Like lots of things, it doesn’t look bad but in practice, it doesn’t pan out.

On a completely different note, I’ve been wondering if I get irritation mixed up with anger. I don’t scream and/or throw shit, which around here is how a lot of people unfortunately display anger. So I’m easing myself into the notion that I get angry/frustrated easily, and how to possibly deal with that, if it can be dealt with. The feeling goes away quick, though, so that’s good, right? I just need to work on a way to not get irritable with people so easy. Would probably help socially as well.